2 Kannada movie actors drown during shooting

Two actors have reportedly drowned while shooting for a Kannada movie, Massti Gudi, after they jumped off a helicopter into the Tippagondanahalli reservoir, 35km west of Bengaluru after a motorboat stationed at the banks to pull them out developed a technical snag and remained ashore, on Monday afternoon.

Duniya Vijay, the main lead of the movie, who had also made a jump along with the deceased survived after locals rushed to his help in a coracle.

According to officials of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage board – the custodians of the reservoir – said the film crew violated the conditional approval.

“The crew was barred from taking aerial shots and entering prohibited areas which included the water,” said an official of the board.

Police team that rushed to the incident site after learning the incident told the media that the three actors who had jumped of from a helicopter from a height of at least 40 meters did not wear any life jackets or safety gears.

A police official said that they have learnt that the two deceased were not good swimmers.

The two deceased actors have been identifed as Anil Kumarand Uday Venkatesh.

According to eyewitness who had been to the reservoir to see the film shooting said, “The three actors had jumped from the helicopter from the height of 50 meters. The three started swimming towards the shore but after 50 metres two of them cried for help and vanished in the water after a few minutes.”

Police said, a motorboat placed at the shore around 200 metres aways from the jump point to pull the actors after the jump had developed a snag forcing the actors to swim till the shore.

On seeing the three struggling to swim a local youth, Ramagiri, rushed towards the jumping point on a coracle and pulled Vijay out of water first. After dropping Vijay at the shore he rushed inside the waters to rescue the other two actors but could not find them.

Superintendent of police, Chandragupta said that a case will be registered against the makers of the movie.

“We have deployed trained deep divers to fish out the bodies of the actors,” added the SP.